Dixie Lining Farmhouse

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Farm Life

How To Get Your Chickens To Lay In Their Nesting Boxes

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This whole dream to own our own farm started 5 years ago in the suburbs of Southern California with backyard chickens and now we’re living in Arkansas living out our dreams. One of my favorite things to do is to collect eggs and when our chickens started laying a couple of weeks ago, I couldn’t wait to get the eggs with Oakley every day. I knew she would enjoy it as much as I do!

There was one problem though, our chickens weren’t laying in their nesting boxes. They were laying wherever they felt like it. It was still hot and there was no telling how long they had been there so we didn’t feel comfortable eating them. It was like a treasure hunt every day.

One mistake we made was not putting shavings in their nesting boxes soon enough. My advice to you is to make sure you have shavings in the boxes ahead of time. Shavings will also help with keeping the eggs clean when they lay them.

We were so excited our chickens started laying but we were bummed they weren’t laying in their nesting boxes. We decided to try putting the eggs we found around the farm in their nesting boxes to encourage them to lay in them. Before we placed them in the nesting boxes, we marked them with sharpie so we knew which ones were old and which ones were new. It didn’t take long and our chickens were laying in their nesting boxes! You can buy fake eggs at places like Tractor Supply and Atwood’s but we decided to use the eggs we already had.

If you have any tips on getting your chickens to lay in their nesting boxes, leave it in the comments below!

‘‘Twas the night before maternity leave ends

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”Twas the night before maternity leave came to a head

Oakley and Wyatt were asleep in their bed

The bags were all packed with diapers and snacks

In hopes that tomorrow wouldn’t be be whack

Thoughts of tomorrow filled their mom’s head

While worries and fears remained unsaid

Wide awake and anxious as ever

Praying they would all survive tomorrow’s endeavor

How would her babies fare?

Even though they’d be in good care

Only time will tell

If tomorrow will go extremely well

For now we wait and pray

That tomorrow will be a great day

Wyatt Jennings Witt

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Have you ever heard the myth that Mexican food can induce labor? Well, I’m convinced there’s some truth to that statement. On the night of my due date, September 12th, Andrew went and got Mexican food from one of our favorite restaurants. I started feeling contractions only a couple of bites into it. I ate my dinner and then proceeded to walk around the house in circles for an hour. My contractions were about five minutes apart but really didn’t hurt that bad, so I didn’t think I was in active labor.

At 8pm, I called labor and delivery and explained that now my contractions were a consistent three minutes apart but still didn’t hurt as bad as I remembered with Oakley. They told me to take some Advil, drink a huge glass of water, and lay down for an hour. After an hour, nothing changed so I called my friend to have her come sit with Oakley until my mom could get here.

When we got up to Labor and Delivery, I was dilated to a 3 with consistent contractions. Every time the nurse checked me it seemed like things were moving right along, including the pain 🤣. At 12am, I got an epidural and it was smooth sailing from there. Andrew, the doctor, the nurses, and myself joked, laughed, and made small talk until he was born.

Wyatt Jennings Witt made his debut on Friday, September 13th at 3:43am weighing 8 pounds and 6 ounces. There was also a harvest moon that day and despite everyone’s predictions about a bunch of babies being born due to the full moon and Friday the 13th, he was the only one born at our hospital on September 13th. It was just Andrew, the doctor, and two nurses in the room when he was born and it was perfect. It was so laid back and peaceful. After he was born Andrew and I got a couple of hours just the three of us until my mom brought Oakley to the hospital. Oakley was so distracted with being in a new place with a new toy (my mom bought her a baby doll) that she didn’t pay much attention to him at first. It didn’t take long until she fell head over heels for her baby brother. The love still continues today, maybe a little too much for Wyatt’s liking sometimes 🤣.

He is such a handsome, sweet little guy and all of us are so in love. I’ve had a couple of people ask if his middle name came from Waylon Jennings and while we are Waylon Jennings fans, there’s more of a meaning to it than a great country singer. His middle name means little Jon and it’s so special to us because Andrew’s middle name is Jon and my Grandpa’s name is John. Andrew’s great grandfather was also John! I love that his middle name came from hardworking, strong men as well as some of my favorite people 💙

We’re now a family of four and Wyatt is the perfect addition!

Being a big sis is tiring

Natural, Inexpensive Way to Deworm

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The thought of worms in any animal can make your skin crawl, as it does theirs I’m sure. Goats seem to be the first animal that comes to mind when the topic of deworming comes up, but there are actually plenty of types of worms that can infest chickens.

There are a couple of different options when it comes to deworming chickens, such as medicated feed, water soluble solutions, and so on. However, I’m all about natural, inexpensive methods, especially when you have a large flock.

With the fall season in full swing, I thought I’d share a fall related chicken dewormer and that is pumpkins! Pumpkin seeds are a great, natural way to deworm your chickens and they love them! When you’re done carving pumpkins this fall season, take the inside scraps and seeds and feed them to your chickens. They’ll have a field day and it will protect against worms as well! If you have any other deworming tips, leave them in the comments below!

DIY Inexpensive Chicken Coop Makeover: Before and After

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The story of our farm actually began when we were dating and still lived in Southern California. Andrew’s dad was nice enough to let us build a chicken coop out of pallets in his backyard. Since then, chickens have always been something we’ve enjoyed but we’ve learned along the way that free range chickens and chicken tractors don’t work for us. I actually wrote a post explaining why free range chickens weren’t for us and why a chicken coop works best for our lifestyle. So, we decided to turn our shed into a chicken coop but it really needed a makeover.

Since we decided a chicken coop will always be something that we want on our farm, we wanted to build one the right way. Our shed is actually really nice. It’s 12×12, insulated, and wired for electricity. We had one major problem though, our shed was right behind our master bedroom and that’s the last place you want a chicken coop. You can click here to read some tips to consider when building a chicken coop. Thankfully, one of Andrew’s coworkers came over and helped him move the shed across the property by putting it on logs and moving it with a tractor.

After Andrew moved it, he built a pen for the chickens to roam around in and started to convert the inside with nesting boxes, roosts, etc. The shed works perfectly as a chicken coop but it really needed a coat of fresh paint. One of my good friends came over and we painted it in the middle of a July heat wave but it was totally worth it! We talked the whole time, while her son and Oakley decided to fill the swimming pool with mud 😂 The life of farm kids!

It took two gallons of white paint and some black paint for the door, skirting, and porch. My friend spotted the already opened and returned gallon of black paint at Lowe’s for only $9! The total for two gallons of white paint and the gallon of black paint was $45. I was so excited to renovate our chicken coop without spending a decent amount of money. We have way too many other farm projects that we want to get done plus there’s no telling what color I’ll want to repaint it in a couple of years 😉

The next two pictures are after our first day of painting. It got too hot and humid to continue painting into the afternoon.

Here are the after pictures! Isn’t it crazy what some paint can do to something? I still need to plant some flowers in the pots but I couldn’t wait any longer to share our coop. The chandelier over the door was hung up at our wedding. Stay tuned for a tour of how we set up the inside of our coop!

Adding Baby #2 to the Family

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With a 2 year old and one on the way, I have so many thoughts going through my head. Since Oakley’s been born and I’ve followed mom blogs and other moms on Instagram, it seems a lot of them have one common fear, how will I be able to love my next child as much as my first? Of course, that fear quickly dissipates the moment they lay eyes on their second child and realize that theirs plenty of room in their hearts. But for me, that isn’t a fear of mine.

My heart already feels like it’s overflowing between being Oakley’s mom and watching Andrew step into his role as dad. I know that I will love this baby just as much as Oakley and that hasn’t been a fear of mine this pregnancy. My fear (more like worries) is how Oakley will adjust. I know she will adjust just like every other sibling and the fact that she LOVES her baby dolls will help, but I still worry. The past two years it’s been just the three of us and I know it will be an adjustment for her regardless of the wonderful big sister she’s going to make. I think part of my fear stems from worry that the baby will get all of the attention and while newborns require a lot, I still want to make sure she’s getting plenty of attention too.

A couple of ways I dream about doing that is by including her in helping take care of him. She’s very independent and loves the phrase, “I do all by myself.” She also loves her baby dolls and pretends to feed them, change them, and lay them down for a nap so I hope she enjoys her real life baby doll in a week or so 😂 I picture her wanting to help get him a blanket, feed him a bottle, or give him a bath. She is a little helper whether you’re doing the laundry, making dinner, or cleaning up. She wants to be involved and in on the action. I hope that never changes as she gets older, especially when it comes to cleaning lol.

Eventually, I’d like to make sure that Andrew and I spend quality time with both of them alone. I’d love to take Oakley on a mommy daughter date once the baby is a little older and I’m sure Andrew will enjoy that too. As much as I think it’s important to spend time together as a family, I think it’s also important to spend some quality time together individually.

Oakley just recently started playing by herself. What good timing, right? However, she still wants me to play horses, dolls, or in her kitchen with her. I figure even if I’m holding him, I can still play with her and use phrases like, “your baby brother and I are going to come play with you.”

Lastly, I think she’ll really enjoy showing him around the farm and introducing him to her different animals. When people come over, she either wants to show them her animals or her room and I look forward to the day we come home from the hospital and she wants to show him around.

This is my first time becoming a mom of two (obviously) so there’s no telling how all of this will pan out but these are my plans as of now. I’ll check back in a couple of weeks and share how Oakley’s adjusting and what I’ve found to help her adjust. If you have experience as a mom of two or more, I’d love to hear how your kids adjusted and what you did to help?

To all the working moms

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If I’m being completely honest, I struggle with mom guilt and I cry the night before going back to work after every break… I would be lying if I said I didn’t cry after a four day weekend one time. Thankfully, I love my job otherwise I really don’t think I could do it. Regardless if you love your job or not, mom guilt is a real thing and leaving your babies with someone else all day is never easy.

I remember I actually cried for a week straight before returning to work after my maternity leave with Oakley. She was so tiny and I couldn’t imagine leaving a 6 week old baby with someone else when all I had done was snuggle her for the first 6 weeks of her life. I really don’t think I ever laid her down.

I could go on and on but the point of this post isn’t to make things worse, it’s to say I get it, I can relate, and the one thing that’s made it easier on me (besides enjoying my job and having a great babysitter) is…

“It’s harder on you than it is on them.” I’ve actually heard this from quite a few moms whose kids are grown now and I finally believe it. Oakley started at a new daycare this year and out of the four days she’s went, she cried twice when I dropped her off. Of course the first time, I cried the whole way to school. Thank you #pregnancyhormones. The second time, her babysitter said to me, “okay mom I’m going to rip the bandaid off. I promise you she stops crying by the time you get to your car.”

Every time that I picked her up in the afternoon she was so excited to tell me that she played baby dolls and cars. She usually wants me to play with her once I get there. Although a job you love and a wonderful babysitter makes things easier, the mom guilt is real and it’s hard but I really do believe that it’s harder on us than it is our kids. We’re doing the best we can and we need to encourage ourselves the way we would our other mom friends. Can you relate? Do you have any tips for overcoming mom guilt?

You Have Goat to be Kidding Me

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You probably remember from a while back that we got four goats. Just in case you don’t, I wrote a whole post about how we got them home in style… Beverly Hillbillies style that is. You can read about that here. I also introduced them and wrote about our plans for them here. Well, this past week we thought our goat experience was over.

We have an area on our farm that is perfect for goats but in typical Andrew and Courtney fashion, we brought them home before that area was ready. Who can pass up goats if the opportunity presents itself, right? They currently live in our barn and catch pen. One day, we decided to let them out and see if they could live with Pistol Pete in the same pasture. In typical Pistol Pete fashion, he chased them and chased them. Probably to death if we weren’t there to separate them. Then we thought maybe we could let them out with our heifers, Maggie and Georgia. Maggie and Georgia weren’t phased and we really weren’t worried about them escaping through our 7 strand barbed wire fence because there’s soooo much for them to eat in that pasture.

And that my friends, is where we went WRONG. Let me preface this story with, last week Andrew got pretty sick and went to the ER twice. They thought it was his gallbladder or stomach ulcers but found out it was gastritis after putting a scope down his throat. Once his stomach started feeling better, he got horrible back pain from sciatica.

Oakley and I took care of feeding the animals while he was down for the count and noticed that our goats weren’t anywhere to be found. We got in the side by side and checked the fence and pasture and still couldn’t find them. The next morning, they still hadn’t come back like Andrew suspected they would and I thought for sure one of two situations was going to happen. The first was that something got them and we were never going to see them again. The second was that their pictures were going to be plastered all over our small town’s Facebook pages and we would like one of those irresponsible goat owners lol.

Luckily, we got a call on the third night they were missing around 8 o’clock saying that our neighbor found them in her pasture. No Facebook famous goat owners over here lol. We both sat up in bed and started cracking up laughing. Not because our goats were found but because of the way we were both sitting. We were in the exact same, awkward position because I’m 36 weeks pregnant and Andrew couldn’t even bend over due to his sciatic nerve. Then Andrew proceeded to tell me that he hates to ask me this while I’m 36 weeks pregnant but he needs me to put his socks on because he can’t bend over. I can’t even get my own socks on right now! I helped him get his socks on and like the old, elderly couple we are, we got on the side by side and went to get our goats. We couldn’t stop looking at each other and laughing. It felt like we were getting a glimpse into the future, about 50 years from now.

Our neighbor came riding up on her horse with the four goats trailing behind. Andrew hopped out of the side by side, shook a bucket of grain, and the goats followed him all the way back to the barn while Oakley and I followed behind on the side by side. Long story short, goats will find a way to escape and they are never to be trusted 😂

Why we chose Nigerian Dwarf Goats

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I became interested in goats about a year ago. I watched a bunch of YouTube videos on them and Oakley loved them at the fair. She hadn’t been walking long and we must had gone in the petting zoo at the fair 10 times. We’d leave for a minute and she would walk right back over to the gate, wanting to play with the baby goats.

Andrew prefers cattle as they make more money and he knows a lot more about them, so I knew it would take some convincing. He didn’t want the goats in the same pastures as the cows because he didn’t want them getting out and it would mean we wouldn’t be able to have as many cows.

One day, I had a great idea. Goats eat brush, leaves, and a bunch of stuff that cows won’t touch. On one side of our property, we have a pretty big, wooded area that we weren’t going to use. I told Andrew that would be the perfect place to keep goats AND they would clean up between the trees. Andrew became fully on board with goats after we figured out where to keep them and that they wouldn’t limit our cattle herd. Speaking of that, our herd is most likely growing but I’ll save that for another post.

We started researching different types of goat breeds and narrowed it down to Nigerian Dwarf Goats and Nubians. We knew we didn’t want a meat breed like Kiko or Boer and if we were going to use our goats for anything other than breeding, we would milk them. After quite a bit of research, we learned that most people think Nigerian Dwarf’s milk tastes the closest to cow’s milk. Milking a goat will be a long ways off, but it’s something I would like to try if I have the time.

We’ve read that Nubians are great dairy goats as well and I love their floppy ears but it seems like a majority of people prefer Nigerian Dwarf’s taste of milk over Nubians. Nubians are also a larger goat and with Oakley being so little, we thought the smaller the better. I would definitely be open to getting some Nubians in the future though.

Right now our plan is to possibly get rid of two bucks and get another doe or two. We would like to breed our does and maybe milk them one day in the future. Now that you’ve read about why we chose Nigerian Dwarf Goats, let me introduce you to the newest members of our farm!

The buck with the black beard is Casey and the buck with the white beard is Jim. The polled white one with the cute, little underbite is Clover and the polled black and white one is John aka the escape artist. Look at him in the pasture with Pete! He’s the same one that jumped out of the back of Andrew’s truck. Our friends actually gave us our goats as their herd was a little bigger than they wanted. You can read more about that and how we got them home with a little redneck ingenuity here. They came with their names and they’re warming up to us pretty quickly! Oakley is in love! She loves to run around with them, give them hugs, and give them kisses!

We got goats and you won’t believe how we got them home!

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Our family friends made the move from California to Arkansas and the house they bought came with 7 goats. Before they moved here, we told them we would take whatever goats they didn’t want as goats are something we’ve been wanting to add to our farm. Well, today they sent us home with 4!

We weren’t exactly sure how we were going to get them home but if you know Andrew at all, he’ll come up with some crazy idea to make it happen. We thought about bringing them home in our dog crates but decided against that idea. As I was getting stuff ready to head up north, Andrew built a make shift goat pen in the bed of his truck out of pallets and a crib. Doesn’t this remind you of the Beverly Hillbillies? 😂

Andrew and Roger loaded the 2 bucks with horns in first. Lisa stood in the bed of the truck holding the door to the pen, I stood there and took pictures (#pregnancyperks), and Oakley napped. The first two went in fine but when it came time to get the two polled goats, it wasn’t as easy. Roger caught the black one and loaded him in first but while Andrew and Roger were trying to coax the white one, aka the smartest one to the truck with feed, the black one slipped through the pallet and jumped off the back of the truck.

They added a couple of boards to the pen to make sure they couldn’t escape again and continued trying to convince both of the goats to walk over to the truck but they had figured out their tricks at this point. So, Andrew picked them up and loaded them into the goat pen with the other two.

The whole way home we got so many laughs, odd stares, and pictures taken of our “goat pen.” We joked that we would end up on one of those memes that said, “Only in Arkansas.” Of course after they perplexingly stared at our pen with four goats in it, they were curious to see who was driving the truck. Poor Andrew but I can’t say I blame them lol. And this is exactly why I love living the farm life with Andrew, he is so resourceful, creative, and every day is an adventure. We’re making memories that will last a lifetime and provide years of laughter.

Oakley was beside herself to get some goats from her grandparents. She loves to feed them and giggles the entire time. She hugs them, kisses them, and laughs when they lick or nibble on her fingers. Maggie, Georgia, and Pistol Pete aren’t sure what to think. They just stare at them like they’re some sort of weird creatures they’ve never seen before. This is the start of our goat herd and we’re so excited! I’ll introduce our new additions to our farm, explain our plans, and why we chose the breed we did another day!